March 17, 2013

ace eases ice oars use. some rime rims cases. more rims are rowan. more suave cease. more saw. see so. saw in summer. no sows. mice mix no nix reunions. sea more sea. never saves ever. raises moreover over rice. i won ice. i won wan ease. i win use. river me wise. river me worn.

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I woke up wondering if the letter i was allowed in the prisoner's constraint (a style of lipogram where you don't use any letters that have ascenders or descenders). Sometimes I wake up like that.

Apparently it is, but t isn't. I guess you could be writing the i without the dot on top -- like people used to do on titles or covers or what have you.

I couldn't find any definitive word on punctuation, so I played it safe and went without commas. That's particularly tough for me.

This is the first response to the "best birthday gift ever" (in quotes, because the gift I got in the fourth grade from my parents will always be the actual best ever -- the brain is different at that age). And I want to say sorry it took so long to get started, but I realize that's a part of me missing the whole point of the gift.

The gift was a collection of writing assignments from many many friends... A year's worth, but I'll go through it at whatever pace -- especially with National Poetry Writing Month nearby.

The funny thing about my prisoner's constraint is that it's meant to be heard not read on the page. So maybe I mean it to be heard in your head. I'll songify it later mayhaps.

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Jamie is a co-director of Narrow House, bass player for Sweatpants (we'll rise again!), and pretty serious about fish tacos. He lives in Baltimore and works in DC at Threespot.
This is how he gets his Facebook on.